This is a request for support of ethnographic and ethnoarcheological research on tropical forest hunter-gatherers: the Ache in Eastern Paraguay. The project focusses on food choices, both acquisition and allocation strategies. It proceeds along two lines. First, we have observed, recorded, and partially analyzed features of food procurement and distribution, and collected extensive data on time allocation, as well as genealogical and demographic data. Analysis of this material and ensuing additional fieldwork will allow us to further test and modify predictions about hunter-gatherer behavior developed from the perspective of evolutionary ecology. Second, we have collected faunal remains and mapped abandoned sites where our antecedent observations provide a record of the behavior which produced the archeological residue. Continuing analysis of these materials and additional field observations, collections, and maps will allow us to systematically assess the archeological reflection of Ache behavior and so contribute to the developing body of work in ethnoarcheology. Our research is aimed to produce data sets which are sufficiently large and detailed to allow quantitative exploration of internal variation within the Ache case. We seek to describe and explain the variation in behavior in terms of general principles and clarify the relationship between that behavior and its archeological consequences. Our larger goal is to elucidate the constraints which govern the form and variation in patterns of food procurement and allocation across time and space.